1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a shifting device for a vehicle, and in particular to a technology for preventing breaking of a guide protrusion that protrudes from a spherical proximal end portion of a shift lever of the vehicle, so as to prevent rotation of the shift lever about its axis.
2. Description of Related Art
It has been proposed to provide a shift lever of a vehicular shifting device with guide protrusions that protrude from a spherical proximal end portion of the shift lever in shift directions and/or select directions, so as to prevent the shift lever from rotating about its axis. One example of this type of vehicular shifting device is described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-254944 (JP 2002-254944A).
The vehicular shifting device described in JP 2002-254944 A principally consists of a shift lever and a holder. The shift lever has a knob in its distal end portion, and a spherical proximal end portion in its proximal end portion, and the spherical proximal end portion is provided with four guide protrusions that protrude in shift directions and select directions, respectively. The holder has a circular hole in which the spherical proximal end portion is slidably supported, and four guide grooves provided at positions corresponding to the guide protrusions, respectively. The guide grooves serve to guide the guide protrusions so as to permit the shift lever to be operated in its operating direction, when the shift lever is operated in one of the shift positions and select positions.
In the vehicular shifting device of JP 2002-254944 A, the four guide protrusions and the corresponding four guide grooves serve to curb or inhibit rotation of the shift lever about its axis, namely, rotation of the lever in the twisting direction of the knob, and the movement of the shift lever is appropriately supported when the shift lever is operated in the shift direction or select direction.
In order to curb rotation of the shift lever around its axis, it is only required to provide a guide protrusion that protrudes in any one of the four directions, i.e., the shift directions and the select directions, and provide the holder with a guide groove that guides the guide protrusion. Thus, it may be considered to provide only one guide protrusion and one guide groove, for reduction of the number of components. The vehicular shifting device thus constructed has one guide protrusion that protrudes in one of the shift directions and selected directions from the spherical proximal end portion of the shift lever, and one guide groove that guides the guide protrusion, and is thus arranged to permit the shift lever to be operated in the shift directions and select directions.